Arsenal Supporters Deserve Better

We deserve better. We deserve better than what we’ve been by our club and we’ve got stand up and say so.

For too long, we’ve sat paid exorbitant prices for season tickets and individual games and not been given a product commensurate with that payment. Now, we are expected to hold our tongue and accept that the people in charge know better than we do.

While they may know the inner workings of football and how to train better than we do, they don’t know (or at least seem to know) that is the fans who are the life blood of a club and disregarding them and their desires and hopes only will continue to disenfranchise more people.

Even the most ardent of supporters are getting unhappy with how things are being run. There is no longer a desire to defend the indefensible. Now, there is a reluctant acceptance that this is how things are. No longer are we optimistic about the coming season. Now, we just hope we don’t commit a slide that makes us the laughing stock of the league.

But every day we see actions or better yet inactions that do just. An unwillingness to accept the new paradigm that football operates in only underscores the fact that Arsenal want to do things totally different whether it’s the right way or wrong.

No one is arguing to spend inordinate amounts of money on players. What we are asking is to use the resources we have to strengthen the club and make paying the prices that are paid for tickets worth it. Right now they aren’t and there is no justification for that.

You look at a club like Dortmund who have lost key players this year, immediately replacing those key players and without spending exorbitant fees. And while I would never advocate spending like Manchester United have, at least they saw some deficiencies in their squad and addressed it. And once again their fans have become annoyingly loud f**ktards again. Why? Because they believe that the club is going in the right direction.

I know many an Arsenal fan that believes that the self-sustainability model is absolute the right thing. I am one of them. But what good is being self-sustainable if you don’t use the resources at your means to put together a “product” that satisfies your customers.

Additionally, how does it make your players feel when you don’t invest.

We understand that titles are not guaranteed. That sports is by its nature a crazy bitch that can break your heart and lift your spirit in the course of one sitting. But shouldn’t the club do everything in its power to do what it can to compete for those titles. I don’t think anyone would complain if we did everything in our power to challenge for titles and fell short.

At least we tried to make a run for it.

Last year, I defended the sitting still in the transfer market. As a coach I rationalized that I understood that Wenger had a team that had just closed out a season in run that was “title winning” in any other season and had emphatically won an FA Cup. It required a tweak to the team – that tweak was Petr Cech.  Wenger had faith in his squad that they could replicate the form that closed out the 14/15 season throughout the entirety of the 15/16 season. That didn’t happen for many reasons.

Now with glaring issues within the playing staff confirmed not just by fans perceptions but the manager himself and injuries mounting – the club seem to be dithering over player fees.

We are told we are not afraid to spend if the value and quality of the player are worth it. At some point given the gaps in the team, you have to accept that the price is the price – regardless of the value placed by the selling club. The gaps in the team warrant possibly paying over the odds (slightly.)

But is it really paying over the odds for a player like Mustafi? A world cup winner. A first team starter for the German National team. The only bright spot on a Valencia squad? The point is, this is a player who can make the squad better in the near term and long term. The club have the resources to get the deal done but if reports are to be believe, we are haggling. Why?

This club, these fans deserve better. We deserve what we were promised when we moved into the Emirates, a team and a club that will and can compete with the biggest clubs in Europe. For whatever reason the foresight that led to the building of the Emirates failed to see the way football has changed.

They’ve accepted that well – the move to the Emirates, the highest ticket prices in the land, cash reserves more than any other club as well as an influx of TV money – means we can’t compete with those clubs. Fans have the right to ask then – why the hell did we move from Highbury then?

To quote the movie Malcolm X:

Oh, I say and I say it again, ya been had!
Ya been took!
Ya been hoodwinked!
Bamboozled!
Led astray!
Run amok!

I have tried to stay as level-headed as I can. I realize there is still time to improve this club for this season but it’s like this every year. Every year we’re sold a bill of goods and every year we fall significantly short of the promises.

This club owes the fans. We built this club. The money that comes out of the match day goers, the ones who buy every shirt that comes out every season, the ones who pay anything to see their club – they built it. From it’s inception to now it’s our coin that keeps the club floating. And we deserve better from the club.

For many fans it’s not just a sport. It’s a way of life supporting a club. You are raised supporting it. You raise your child supporting it. The club can be run like a business, but it can never forget that its most important constituent – is in terms they may appreciate – the customer. The fan. The supporter. You and me. And we deserve better than being mugged off and taken for granted.